VOLADORES, JUEGO DE LOS

(Spanish: game of the fliers), ritual dance of Mexico, possibly originating among the pre-Columbian Totonac and Huastec Indians of the region now occupied by Veracruz and Puebla states, where it is still danced. Although the costumes and music show Spanish influence, the dance itself survives almost exactly in its original form. Four or six men (the voladores, or flyers) dance on a platform atop a pole 60 to 90 feet (18 to 27 m) high; at the end of the dance, they circle downward around the pole as the ropes that fasten them to it unwind. The ancient agricultural fertility significance of the dance has disappeared, but there remains in the number of dancersfour or sixthe pre-Christian ritual orientation to the four points of the compass plus the zenith and the nadir.